James Tiptree, Jr. was praised as the male voice of feminism back in the 70s before fandom blew up the cover and exposed writer Alice Sheldon behind this pen-name. What a fascinating life! The author was a high ranked officer during WWII, worked for the CIA in the 50s, went back to school, achieved a bachelor of arts, and achieved a doctorate in psychology in the 60s. Unsure, what to do with it, she started publishing 1968 under her pen-name and was soon rewarded with SF’s most important awards – Hugo and Nebula Awards for her shorter works.

The stories in this collection are mostly dark, utterly dark, often depressing. They involve sexism and rape, even incest, sometimes explicitly, though not in a pornographic way to make a statement for feminism. It is very hard reading one story after the other – which means that the collection is less enjoyable than reading single stories. Other topics in her stories are free will versus biological determinism.

Her strongest works are in the shorter form – she published novels as well, but those weren’t as well received as her short works. It surely is a milestone in SF and I heavily recommend reading at least a couple of her stories.